The Anglo-Indian Residents Of Bombay Are, For The Most Part, Scattered All Over The Island, Living In Very Comfortable Houses, Of No Great Pretensions To Exterior Elegance, Yet Having For The Most Part An Air Of Home Enjoyment, Which Suggests Pleasing Ideas.

One feature is very striking, the porticoes and verandahs of many being completely covered with luxuriant flowering creepers, which in Bengal are never suffered to be near the house, in consequence of the harbour they are supposed to give to insects and reptiles.

The approach to these beautiful screens is, however, frequently through a cabbage-garden, the expedience of planting out the unsightly but useful vegetables destined for the kitchen not having been as yet considered; neither can the gardens at this period of the year, the cold season, compare with those of Bengal, the expense of irrigation preventing the inhabitants from devoting so much time and attention to their improvement, while as yet the natives have not been encouraged to fill the bazaars with European vegetables. Pease are spoken of as not being uncommon, but I have only seen them once, even at the best tables. Neither have cauliflowers, French beans, or asparagus, made their appearance - vegetables common at Christmas all over the Bengal presidency.

The interiors of the houses are, generally speaking, more embellished than those of Calcutta; the greater part have handsome ceilings, and the doorways and windows are decorated with mouldings, and otherwise better finished. The walls also are coloured, and often very tastefully picked out with white or some other harmonizing tint. The reception-rooms, therefore, have not the barn-like air which detracts from the magnitude of those of Bengal, and the furniture, if not always equally splendid, is shown off to greater advantage; but here I should say the superiority ends.

Some of the small bungalows are very neatly fitted up with boarded ceilings, a great improvement upon the cloth which conceals the rafters in those of Bengal; others, however, are canopied with cloth, and some there are which appear more like summer-houses than habitations intended for Europeans throughout the year, being destitute of glass windows, and open to all the winds of heaven.

The frequent changes of the atmosphere which occur in Bombay, and the danger of a touch of the land-wind, render the absence of glass windows a very serious evil; they are, however, unknown in the temporary bungalows erected upon the Esplanade, which seem to be favourite residences of people who could lodge themselves more substantially if they pleased. The barn-like thatched roofs of these dwellings make them rather unsightly objects, though some are redeemed by a thick drapery of creepers; but the interiors of many are of a very pavilion-like description, and the singularity of all renders them interesting to a stranger.

These houses usually consist of two or more principal apartments, united with each other by means of verandahs, and formed chiefly of wooden frame-work panelled with canvas, with here and there a partition of wattle and dab.

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